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My White Whale: A True Exploration System (+)
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<blockquote data-quote="The-Magic-Sword" data-source="post: 9173124" data-attributes="member: 6801252"><p>So, mark my username, because it represents something that is very important to me-- and that's the role player-driven exploration plays in shaping and defining their own experience. In the original legend of zelda the Magic Sword (or Magical Sword) is the strongest weapon in the game but unlike the Master Sword of later titles (until the Wild/Kingdom Era) it is entirely optional and requires the player to explore and experiment with the world. </p><p></p><p>To get it, you need to explore until you find the <a href="https://www.zeldadungeon.net/wiki/Graveyard_(The_Legend_of_Zelda)" target="_blank">Graveyard</a> which you will pass through on your way to one the game's later dungeons, but in order to get the sword you have to hang out in a really difficult area and find a specific grave on one of the screens that link can push to open it up (you also need 12 hearts.) It's probably not even the best example of this, but largely I love it because finding the Sword represents a divergence caused by Player Choice that influences their experience, the very idea that something like this can exist in the game-- it's strongest weapon tucked beneath a random grave waiting for someone whose willing to really explore that zone, to have the imagination that there could be something about the gravestones there, is a major incentive to poke at the nooks and crannies in the game world, and see novel and fantastical possibilities in the space. </p><p></p><p>Exploration and it's rewards can become an exercise in identity, where making choices to poke around in certain places produces ownership over the rewards that you get, and if handled correctly, offers emergent distinction. You and I won't have the same experience with the same dungeon, we won't solve problems the same way-- we might find different entrances, we might do something in a different order, we might find different treasure. I am drunk on the idea of that-- even something as simple as the mine cart puzzle in early Tears of the Kingdom, where there's a gap in the tracks is something that gets me really excited because I got to come up with my own novel solution. </p><p></p><p>I love your tooling around with meta-currencies and psuedo-meta-currencies (your effort to link them more firmly to the thing that the player's actually found in the game) because the idea of a player who was struck by inspiration that there was something cool being rewarded for that in a non-farmable way, then getting to spend that to be stronger is a very fun one. I've experimented with exp systems along the same lines, and my current Pathfinder West Marches project uses treasure as a leveling system so that treasury can always be loaded into interesting spots that might inspire investigation, treasure is nice because magic items are useful and can be location thematic, and the type of treasure you find can be loreful (say, a painting by a master painter depicting something with lore implications), but still breakdown into the currency the game cares about (gold.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="The-Magic-Sword, post: 9173124, member: 6801252"] So, mark my username, because it represents something that is very important to me-- and that's the role player-driven exploration plays in shaping and defining their own experience. In the original legend of zelda the Magic Sword (or Magical Sword) is the strongest weapon in the game but unlike the Master Sword of later titles (until the Wild/Kingdom Era) it is entirely optional and requires the player to explore and experiment with the world. To get it, you need to explore until you find the [URL='https://www.zeldadungeon.net/wiki/Graveyard_(The_Legend_of_Zelda)']Graveyard[/URL] which you will pass through on your way to one the game's later dungeons, but in order to get the sword you have to hang out in a really difficult area and find a specific grave on one of the screens that link can push to open it up (you also need 12 hearts.) It's probably not even the best example of this, but largely I love it because finding the Sword represents a divergence caused by Player Choice that influences their experience, the very idea that something like this can exist in the game-- it's strongest weapon tucked beneath a random grave waiting for someone whose willing to really explore that zone, to have the imagination that there could be something about the gravestones there, is a major incentive to poke at the nooks and crannies in the game world, and see novel and fantastical possibilities in the space. Exploration and it's rewards can become an exercise in identity, where making choices to poke around in certain places produces ownership over the rewards that you get, and if handled correctly, offers emergent distinction. You and I won't have the same experience with the same dungeon, we won't solve problems the same way-- we might find different entrances, we might do something in a different order, we might find different treasure. I am drunk on the idea of that-- even something as simple as the mine cart puzzle in early Tears of the Kingdom, where there's a gap in the tracks is something that gets me really excited because I got to come up with my own novel solution. I love your tooling around with meta-currencies and psuedo-meta-currencies (your effort to link them more firmly to the thing that the player's actually found in the game) because the idea of a player who was struck by inspiration that there was something cool being rewarded for that in a non-farmable way, then getting to spend that to be stronger is a very fun one. I've experimented with exp systems along the same lines, and my current Pathfinder West Marches project uses treasure as a leveling system so that treasury can always be loaded into interesting spots that might inspire investigation, treasure is nice because magic items are useful and can be location thematic, and the type of treasure you find can be loreful (say, a painting by a master painter depicting something with lore implications), but still breakdown into the currency the game cares about (gold.) [/QUOTE]
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